Seattle Bands Out About Whom I Am Geeking

I haven’t gotten to see these folks live yet, but their self-titled debut album has been on constant rotation in my car. The record gets better and better as I listen to it over and over – a truly impressive effort with zero duds. Like Mumford & Sons (another band with whom I have fallen into a deep and tireless love), this band masters the multi-part song, making drastic tempo and rhythm changes feel completely natural with beautiful, memorable Americana hooks. I’ve already come to them pretty late in the game – most of their gigs right now are opening for larger, sold-out acts like Vampire Weekend and The Weepies, plus they are getting tons of love from KEXP and NPR. It’s only a matter of time before they are a buzz name coast to coast.

Below are some live KEXP sessions of the first two songs on their album:

Ravenna Woods

I saw this band play a killer set at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard a few weeks ago after hearing their name around town for a while. The energy in the live show was fantastic, and having the alternate drum kit was really interesting and fun to watch. I have not heard much from the record yet – with a band like this I almost want to see them live a few more times to solidify my love before I take them home with me. Those indie rockers and their reverb-heavy studio leanings can play with your heart so…

Hey Marseilles

This was initially one of Meg’s listen-at-the-record-store finds, and then a name that came up repeatedly in my conversations with folks about local bands. Big time orchestration on the whole album – reminds me of Chicago orchestral-poppers Canasta.

The Young Evils

I wrote about The Young Evils a while back after seeing them open for The Shondes right after I got to Seattle. Since then, they have released their debut album Enchanted Chapel and have been getting some great bookings and KEXP love. Plus they’ve made a couple really good music videos:

Megan Larson

After meeting Megan at a mutual friend’s birthday party we’ve become big time songwriting buddies. It’s been absolutely wonderful having someone so talented here in Seattle with whom I can workshop new songs. As I’m sure you can tell from the video below she’s a great singer/songwriter – this song “Bottle Caps” gets stuck in my head on the regular:

The Elderly

This is here as a teaser. This acoustic band kind of crashed a house party that I played a couple weeks ago and absolutely blew us all away with their three-part harmony and beautiful songwriting a la Iron and Wine or Simon & Garfunkel. The Elderly’s debut EP is coming out on Nov. 2 at Chop Suey, but I’ve got one in my CD player right now after doing an interview with them last night. You’ll be hearing much more from me about these folks!

Hey! I’m Matt!

In May 2010, I moved to Seattle from Chicago. Back in Chicago I was the co-frontman of a pretty successful local band. Upon arriving in Seattle, however, I didn’t know anyone or anything about the local music scene.

This blog started as a means to explore music communities in Seattle, which was a huge personal success. From here on out it will be more personal – more of a creative outlet to help me dig into music that is affecting me. Thanks for reading and sharing these experiences with me. Read More…